The New Rules of the IPO

Inside the Surreal and Emotional Experience of Taking Your Company Public

The CEO and executives of a $2 billion company candidly recount how it happened — from roadshow to opening day

This story is part of The New Rules of the IPO, a multi-part special report.
Illustrations: James Clapham

It was one of the most hotly awaited IPOs of 2017. Redfin, a Seattle-based real estate site, took off after hiring agents and cutting way down on their fees through technology like map-based searches, house-tour booking, and tracking of the closing process. In 2005, CEO Glenn Kelman joined the company, and once it survived — barely — the 2008 housing downturn and recession, the will-they-or-won’t-they debate around an IPO began.

By 2016, when Redfin earned $267 million in revenue, leadership thought the time might finally be right to go public. Marker asked Kelman and 11 others involved to get candid about the process, from the private jet to Kelman’s anxiety when he thought investors seemed totally uninterested, not to mention the food. So much food. “No one else had ever been around me 24/7, and I think they were actually disgusted at just how much I ate,” Kelman says.

Besides the work of the actual IPO, Kelman was concerned about the impact on Redfin’s culture, which was go-getter with a side of wacky — Kelman describes Redfin employees as “rabid squirrels.” He also wanted to make sure all the IPO special treatment didn’t go to his head. “At first, when you’re in an apartment with a few other people, they don’t think you’re anything special; they’ve all smelled your farts,” he says, but that can change as a company gets bigger. “It’s absolutely toxic to your culture to put on airs, to act like you’re better than anybody else.”

GLENN KELMAN, Redfin CEO: I joined Redfin when it was three people in an apartment, so it would’ve been hubris to think of an IPO at that point.

PAUL GOODRICH, managing director, Madrona Venture Group, an early investor and former board member: Redfin was doing something highly innovative. Back at that time there were no websites other than Redfin on which you could search…